2 Mininet Installation/Configuration Notes
3 ----------------------------------------
8 The supported installation methods for Mininet are 1) using a
9 pre-built VM image, and 2) native installation on Ubuntu. You can also
10 easily create your own Mininet VM image (4).
12 (Other distributions may be supported in the future - if you would
13 like to contribute an installation script, we would welcome it!)
15 1. Easiest "installation" - use our pre-built VM image!
17 The easiest way to get Mininet running is to start with one of our
18 pre-built virtual machine images from <http://mininet.org/>
20 Boot up the VM image, log in, and follow the instructions on the
23 One advantage of using the VM image is that it doesn't mess with
24 your native OS installation or damage it in any way.
26 Although a single Mininet instance can simulate multiple networks
27 with multiple controllers, only one Mininet instance may currently
28 be run at a time, and Mininet requires root access in the machine
29 it's running on. Therefore, if you have a multiuser system, you
30 may wish to consider running Mininet in a VM.
32 2. Next-easiest option: use our Ubuntu package!
34 To install Mininet itself (i.e. `mn` and the Python API) on Ubuntu
37 sudo apt-get install mininet
39 Note: if you are upgrading from an older version of Mininet, make
40 sure you remove the old OVS from `/usr/local`:
42 sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ovs*
43 sudo rm /usr/local/sbin/ovs*
45 3. Native installation from source
47 3.1. Native installation from source on Ubuntu 12.04+
49 If you're reading this, you've probably already done so, but the
50 command to download the Mininet source code is:
52 git clone git://github.com/mininet/mininet.git
54 Note that the above git command will check out the latest and greatest
55 Mininet (which we recommend!) If you want to run the last tagged/released
56 version of Mininet, you can look at the release tags using
63 git checkout <release tag>
65 where <release tag> is the release you want to check out.
67 If you are running Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora, you may be able to use
68 our handy `install.sh` script, which is in `util/`.
70 *WARNING: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!*
72 `install.sh` is a bit intrusive and may possibly damage your OS
73 and/or home directory, by creating/modifying several directories
74 such as `mininet`, `openflow`, `oftest`, `pox`, etc.. We recommend
75 trying it in a VM before trying it on a system you use from day to day.
77 Although we hope it won't do anything completely terrible, you may
78 want to look at the script before you run it, and you should make
79 sure your system and home directory are backed up just in case!
81 To install Mininet itself, the OpenFlow reference implementation, and
82 Open vSwitch, you may use:
86 This should be reasonably quick, and the following command should
87 work after the installation:
89 sudo mn --test pingall
91 To install ALL of the software which we use for OpenFlow tutorials,
92 including POX, the OpenFlow WireShark dissector, the `oftest`
93 framework, and other potentially useful software, you may use:
97 This takes about 4 minutes on our test system.
99 You can change the directory where the dependencies are installed using
100 the -s <directory> flag.
102 util/install.sh -s <directory> -a
104 3.2. Native installation from source on Fedora 18+.
106 As root execute the following operations:
112 * create an user account (e.g. mininet) and add it to the wheel group
114 useradd [...] mininet
115 usermod -a -G wheel mininet
117 * change the SElinux setting to permissive. It can be done
122 then login with the new account (e.g. mininet) and do the following:
124 * clone the Mininet repository
126 git clone git://github.com/mininet/mininet.git
128 * install Mininet, the OpenFlow reference implementation, and
133 * enable and start openvswitch
135 sudo systemctl enable openvswitch
136 sudo systemctl start openvswitch
138 * test the mininet installation
140 sudo mn --test pingall
142 4. Creating your own Mininet/OpenFlow tutorial VM
144 Creating your own Ubuntu Mininet VM for use with the OpenFlow tutorial
145 is easy! First, create a new Ubuntu VM. Next, run two commands in it:
147 wget https://raw.github.com/mininet/mininet/master/util/vm/install-mininet-vm.sh
148 time install-mininet-vm.sh
150 Finally, verify that Mininet is installed and working in the VM:
152 sudo mn --test pingall
154 5. Installation on other Linux distributions
156 Although we don't support other Linux distributions directly, it
157 should be possible to install and run Mininet with some degree of
160 In general, you must have:
162 * A Linux kernel compiled with network namespace support enabled
164 * An compatible software switch such as Open vSwitch or
167 * Python, `bash`, `ping`, `iperf`, etc.
169 * Root privileges (required for network device access)
171 We encourage contribution of patches to the `install.sh` script to
172 support other Linux distributions.